What disagreements did Ronald Reagan have with the policies of the Republican Party under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford?

Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966. He soon made a national reputation for himself by becoming an outspoken critic of the antiwar movement and other protests that had erupted on college campuses, including the University of California at Berkeley.

In 1968, Reagan sought the Republican nomination for president for the first time. His main rival for the nomination was another Californian, Richard M. Nixon, who had been defeated by John F. Kennedy in 1960. Nixon had risen to national prominence in the 1940s as one of the most determined anti-Communists in the U.S. House of Representatives and had served as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president from 1953-1961. Reagan and his supporters believed that Nixon's views were not sufficiently conservative on several issues. Even though Nixon had won fame for pursuing Communists working in the U.S. government, Reagan believed that Nixon and the moderate wing of the Republican party were too willing to negotiate with the Soviet Union. From Reagan's view, the USSR, as well as other Communist governments, were illegitimate, and he believed that the U.S. should seek ways to eliminate communism both at home and abroad.

Reagan also objected to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act passed during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Republican politicians realized that many white Southern voters were also opposed to the Democratic Party's support of civil rights for African Americans, and Reagan was the favored candidate among these voters. In the 1968 campaign, Reagan, Nixon, and South Carolina Senator J. Strom Thurmond met to discuss the Republican policy on civil rights. Nixon was eager to gain the endorsement of both Reagan and Thurmond, because he hoped to gain the votes of white Southern opponents of civil rights. Nixon agreed that, if elected, he would oppose extending the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed in 1965 and subject to review and renewal in 1970. In exchange for this promise, Reagan agreed to end his bid for the nomination, and Thurmond agreed to support Nixon and help him win in the South.

In 1976, Reagan made his second bid for the presidency, attempting to beat incumbent Republican President Gerald R. Ford, who became president after the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign in August 1974. Once again, Reagan hoped to move the Republican Party in a more conservative direction. He was especially opposed to Nixon's and Ford's policy of detente toward the Soviet Union. Reagan believed that the United States should not attempt to seek friendly relations with the USSR but should instead commit itself to opposing and eventually defeating communism in Russia and around the globe. Ford narrowly defeated Reagan for the Republican nomination, but in turn he lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter of Georgia in the November election.